Just enough people made just enough progress on split routines that I assumed the fault for my lack of gains lay within myself -- I must be doing something wrong. And of course I was -- just not what I had thought.
It seems to me that people have always had an interest in the way the super-strong have trained, and the muscle mags have answered that call. In the old days, the big one was Alan Calverts Strength magazine giving us the goods on Saxon and Sandow and Hackenschmidt, etc. The next big one was Peary Raders Ironman with Hise, Peoples, Boone, Davis, Anderson, Hepburn, et al. Then came Bob Hoffmans Strength and Health and Park, Grimek, and the champion Olympic lifters of the era: Kono, Schemansky, the George Brothers, and on and on.
These physical culture periodicals published the training routines of all the stars, and the information was invaluable to the average lifter because the training methods were based on what worked. Gradually, as the use of steroids became more pronounced, the routines that the champs were using began to change -- and the magazines published those programs. And, as you might expect, the average reader started to emulate these new split routines, and didnt get the results that the champs were getting. The problem was that the champs didnt make it known to the magazines that they were pharmaceutically-assisted. Thus, the editors of the time were likely as duped as the poor reader. And if the editors did in fact know, it seems that they werent telling.
Today, of course, theyre still not talking.
Even though its a big open secret in the muscle mag industry that most -- okay, probably all -- of the physiques you see pictured in the comics were ultimately built with steroids. And the mags are still publishing those split routines, and not mentioning the prerequisite need for boatloads of drugs to make those programs work. And for that, I most certainly do blame Joe Weider and Bob Kennedy and all their ilk. They are selling unattainable dreams to kids and wide-eyed young men; they are selling these poor bastards supplements that wont work, and cheating them of something that could otherwise have been a very fulfilling and worthwhile pursuit, and they are leading them to failure and disappointment -- and they know it! I personally wasted precious years of my life -- perhaps what might have been my most productive training years, with a system pumped full of raging teenage hormones -- on those ineffectual and pernicious routines. To think how much bigger and stronger I might have been today is almost enough to move me to tears. Would that I knew then
Oh yes, I am still holding this grudge after all these years!
Reliable References
There are precious few periodicals and books out there that are telling you the truth about physical training; you would do well to go out of your way to find them.
IronMinds MILO magazine tops the list, of course. And a couple of now-defunct magazines you should make an effort to get back issues of:
Dinosaur Files and HardGainer. (These are just the few that I have personal experience with; there may well be others of which Im unaware.) To me, it seems very much a shame that some of the most honest and useful magazines are not more well-known, and many typically fold after a relatively short time, while the newsstand glossies continue to churn out the same nonsense, month after month!
In terms of books, most of the stuff by
Stuart McRoberts is excellent, if a bit conservative. Look for
Brawn especially (the book that finally got me gaining in size and strength), as well as Beyond Brawn; his Insiders Tell-All Handbook on Weight-Training Technique is invaluable for learning proper lifting technique.
Brooks D. Kubiks Dinosaur Training is outstanding, and a personal favorite; it compelled me to completely re-evaluate my approach to training. Without question, get
Pavels Power to the People! for a simplex approach to building strength -- with or without size.
Bill Starrs Strongest Shall Survive is also quite good, and has aged very well, thank you; as Ive been saying -- the methods that work dont change much. Check out William F. Hinberns website
www.SuperStrengthBooks.com for a wide assortment of very valuable reading materials: books by and about Saxon, Hackenschmidt, Goerner, Paschall, Berry, Calvert, et al. Almost any of these books would be eminently valuable to you; a wealth of productive training wisdom.
If You Insist on Splitting
In my humble opinion, there is really only one type split routine that might be worth discussing -- beyond the lift-splitting example offered in the opening paragraph of this treatise, of course. If you insist on using a split routine, I implore you to consider the upper body/lower body split.
This type split was favored by none other than the gargantuan powerhouse Paul Anderson.
One of the very first body part split routines,
the upper/lower split offers some significant benefits that arent found with most of todays popular splits. First is a much more equal division of the bodys musculature. With the upper/lower split, you are able to emphasize the back and the shoulder girdle in one session, and the hips and legs in the other. The core/midsection could conceivably be trained in each session. In both of these workouts you are training a considerable portion of the bodys muscle mass with heavy weights.
Which leads us to perhaps the most notable and beneficial perk: the potential to use some of the really BIG lifts:
the clean-and-press/jerk, the snatch, the one-arm swing all fit nicely into the upper body workout (not necessarily all in one session, of course); the various squats and deadlifts are the obvious choices for the lower body day. Using these big lifts will offer many of the advantages of whole-body routines -- if you use the big lifts.
An upper/lower split is fairly worthless if you just fill the program with wimpy little isolation exercises. Naturally, there may occasionally be some overlap of the muscle groups being trained in each session, but this is okay because you probably wont be training every day (although with proper variation of the intensity and volume, you certainly could; I just wouldnt recommend it). Typically,
if you are training for some size along with your strength, and/or if you are involved in other physical activities, you will do best lifting only two to four days per week. Also, by using the big, multi-joint drills, you are able to get more work done in less time; in other words, you can train all of the involved major musculature with only a small handful of lifts. For example, one-arm dumbbell swings, cleans-and-presses, and the pullover-and-press for the upper body; squats and stiff-legged deadlifts for the lower. Or, even more streamlined for less wasted time and energy: snatches and one-arm standing presses for the upper body, bent-leg deadlifts for the lower.
), and it just plain works for me.